Friday, March 17, 2017

SCOTLAND : SNP MP attacked by Catholic Church over faith schools

The Catholic Church has condemned a leading
SNP figure for being “chillingly intolerant” after he voiced his
opposition to faith schools.

Tommy Sheppard, SNP MP for Edinburgh East, has said Scotland
should have a secular school system and called on people to “chip away”
at the role played by organised religion in the classroom.

Mr
Sheppard’s remarks, which have only just come to light, were made when
he spoke at a Humanist Society Scotland Fringe event at last year’s SNP
conference.

The event was promoting the Scottish humanist
society’s ‘Enlighten Up’ campaign’ which seeks to end mandatory
religious representation on local authority education committees.

A recording of the event showed Mr Sheppard saying he hoped to see a secular system in Scotland.

“The
question is divining a strategy to get there and how we do it is bit by
bit. And some of the things in the `Enlighten Up’ campaign are I
believe are exactly the way to do that,” said Mr Sheppard, who describes
himself as an atheist and humanist.

“Chip away at the power of
organised religion has within our school system. Take those little
victories and use them to move onto the next campaign were we actually
advocate that the role of religion in schools is for people to learn
about it about it but not for it to define the value system in the
school.”

A spokesman for the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland said:
“This is a blatant attack on religious freedom and chillingly
intolerant. While members of the Humanist society claim to be proud of
their belief system, they don’t seem sufficiently proud of it to argue
for humanist schools which would be underpinned by humanist beliefs.

“Politicians should know that religious belief is a
protected characteristic and when it is expressed through educational
choice, it should not come under attack. Currently over 20 per cent of
the school population choose Catholic schools, this parental choice
reflects the educational value of Catholic schools, consistently
documented in HMIe reports.”

A SNP spokesman said: “These views do
not represent the position of the SNP or the Scottish Government and
are simply the personal views of Mr Sheppard.

“The SNP is a strong
supporter of faith schools. They play an important part in Scotland’s
education system, and the SNP Government believe it’s important for
parents and pupils to have the choice to attend a faith school if they
want to.”